Kim Dotcom offers to extradite himself, for a price

MegaUpload founder Kim Dotcom made an especially bold offer this week, telling the Department of Justice that he’s willing to come to the U.S. of his own volition and turn himself in, provided they release his assets so that he can pay his legal bills and mount a proper defense.

“Hey DOJ, we will go to the US,” he wrote on Twitter. “No need for extradition. We want bail, funds unfrozen for lawyers & living expenses.”

Prosecutors also argued that there was so much data seized in the raid — over 150 terabytes, specifically — that it would have been impossible to filter through all of it in time for an evidence discovery deadline.

Once all that legal morass has been untangled, Dotcom could find himself penniless and without counsel — a prospect he’s definitely sweating over.

“They are sitting on all my money,” he told The New Zealand Herald. “I have no money to pay my lawyers. Every move they make, they know I have to send my lawyers there. They make it so I have no chance in the long run to defend myself. Lawyers need money too.”

Dotcom reportedly added that he believes the FBI will never accept his offer because, in his view, they have no real case. He and fellow defendants face up to 25 years in jail over charges that they ran the largest criminal copyright violation scheme in history.

About the Author

Stephen C. Webster is the senior editor of Raw Story, and is based out of Austin, Texas. He previously worked as the associate editor of The Lone Star Iconoclast in Crawford, Texas, where he covered state politics and the peace movement’s resurgence at the start of the Iraq war. Webster has also contributed to publications such as True/Slant, Austin Monthly, The Dallas Business Journal, The Dallas Morning News, Fort Worth Weekly, The News Connection and others. Follow him on Twitter at @StephenCWebster.